Cisco has recently entered the datacenter space with its Unified Computing launch, which pitches it in direct competition against HP? How is it expected to impact your strategy?

The Cisco announcement doesn’t impact HP’s strategy, but rather reinforces how key it is that the provider of choice for IT data centers has to be able to provide a complete solution. There are many ways a vendor can provide that solution. We continue to focus on evolving our portfolio to meet the dynamic needs of our customers.

In a consolidating market, what is likely to be your USP going forward?

At HP, we have a lot of technologies that bring immense value to our customers, and IDC’s recent market share results show HP strengthening its number one position in the server business, and continuing to gain share in the Blades market. HP has a rich history of not only being able to invent great solutions, but we have a strong collaboration with industry partners to create a robust ecosystem. We have a very strong portfolio to deliver an Adaptive Enterprise to our customers. The completeness of solutions required in the most demanding data centers include not only servers and networking, but also storage, security, even integration with the facilities design and maintenance teams. HP’s strategy has and will continue to incorporate all of these into our full range of solutions with both internal development and industry partnerships, that we think is unrivaled in the industry.

There seems to be some more competition heading your way in the form of a potential IBM-Sun combine?

With regard to IBM’s acquiring Sun, I would like to say that HP does not comment on market speculations.

While many believe CIO's role is evolving and that he's occupying a key place in the boardroom, a recent study brings to light that more than half of the CIO, CTO or IT admin staff (55%) are not thanked by colleagues for carrying out essential IT tasks on their behalf.